The seventh day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

OLD BAY SEASONING

I saw someone had a photo of a box of old bay seasoning on their Facebook page and it brought back all kinds of nostalgia.

This is, "The Cranky Crab" image I made some years ago on a dock on Maryland's eastern shore in a little town called Rock Hall. Population small!

The town where I grew up in the summers.

We could go out on any dock along the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay or the bay itself for that matter, and catch crabs all day long. That's changed today. Too many people, trash, pollution, yada, yada, yada. But that's a story for another day. Incidentally, they do bite and hard.

These are blue crabs and are stage one dinner. Add some Old Bay and steam and they turn red (now you know what they are) and they're stage two. A true delicacy.

But back to my childhood, well adulthood as well. I have cooked and eaten more crabs than I like to think and all I can say is..... it is not enough.

We kids would get some string, chicken necks or other bait, dip nets, bushel baskets, and spend a day on the docks catching these critters. We caught them with bait or just dipped them as they hung on the pilings. This was my early teens, you know a hundred years ago. What we didn't eat, we sold at the local fish house.

Back in the late fifties and sixties in Maryland, most restaurants had pin ball machines you could play for a nickel a game. If you won, the restaurant would pay a nickel a game for however many you had scored. Man, this system was like Manna from heaven for us kids.

We would start out on Mondays collecting as many crabs as we could catch either off the docks or wading the shallows. A bushell or two would stake us to the next step in financial independence.

Off to the restaurants with our crab money and onto the machines. Well, a mid-teenager KNOWS how to play a pinball machine and win. If you ran up 300 games, well that was fifteen dollars and you still had most of your crab money left over.

On top of all that we took our shoes off in June and didn't put them back on till September. Our parents always wondered where we got our money from.

That was the land of pleasant living.

The sixth day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

"ROCK'N ROBIN"



Used to be a song by that name and some of my Westfield High School buds will remember dancing to that or just hanging out in the car outside of Shades and listening. Or was that another era.



God where has it gone!



This lady, and I know it is a lady, was angry with me as I was approaching too close to her nest. A long lens got me closer but she was still not pleased with the intrusion. In photographing wildlife, there is a thin line one just does not cross before the critter is too stressed to be worth a photo.



This gal was on the very edge of that stress and trying to pass it on to me. Took a couple dozen shots to round out the angry robin file and thanked her gratuitously.



When photographing songbirds, I look for facial features and or character. There are just too many birds standing on a post for a normal photo to stand out. Of course there is one bird who does stand out on his post and has made his owner, my friend, Michael Smith a very wealthy man. That of course is the "Mad Bluebird", and the image is one of a kind.


http://www.themadbluebird.com/

The fifth day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE

National Night Out at the neighbors.

Good Friends!

Good food!

Good drink!

Lotsa laughs!

We lit up the neighborhood and can't wait for the block party!

And these are only two of the homes that participated last night.

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT! The 4th day of the 8th month of the year of the OP

COME ON OVER!

National Night Out ............ Tonight!

Leave your front porch light on!

Invite the neighbors over for refreshments and have a porch party!

Wave at people as they go by!

Show the criminals that we own the neighborhood.........not them!

http://www.nationalnightout.org/nno/about.html

Don't let the photo of our place scare you. We'll leave the light on for you. Come on over! By the way if you're a felon, just disregard all this cause you're unwelcome! And we're armed!

The third day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

Of all the egret family, the snowy is my favorite.

Why?

Cause they have attitude!

A small bird seen mostly in the marshes and dancing on bright yellow feet. Most of the time they have their comb (on top of their heads) pulled in tight. But during the mating season or when they are angry/surprised they put it up much like a cardinal.

This one was taken in Edisto Beach, SC late in the day and had been making trips back and forth to a nest in the palm trees. I slowed the shutter way down for a couple of shots and got a sorta artsy image as he was taking off.

Have sold the image well, as it is different than most wildlife photos seen at shows, and the picture has been very good to me.

The second day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

RAINY DAY IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Kinda on again off again rain, so outside stuff is a little limited today. Good book day!

The image is of the Gravais Street bridge between West Columbia and Columbia, SC spanning the Congaree River. The Congaree is a product of the joining of the Saluda and Broad Rivers just above this bridge.

Even though this is within spitting distance of a major metropolis and "in town" so to speak, the river is home to all kinds of critters. Long legged wading birds, egrets primarily and a few blue herons are seen every day. Harder to find are the water snakes, moccasins, rattlers, and copperheads. Oh yeah, we got em. An occasional gator will make it's way up the river from time to time as well.

http://www.nationalregister.sc.gov/richland/S10817740059/

The first day of the eighth month of the year of the OP

August first and where does it go?


Just a bit nostalgic today, missing my kids and grand kids. I know they are at the beach in Delaware. Doing what old kids and young alike do on a summer Saturday in an area of brilliant beauty.


The accompanying photo is one I made some time back of Cape Henlopen in Delaware and if you look closely you can see the Delaware Breakwater lighthouse on the left and way off in the distance on the right is a white spec called the Harbor Refuge light. The Delaware Bay is to the left and the Atlantic to the right. That's why it's called a cape!


http://www.lighthousefriends.com/pull-state.asp?state=DE&Submit=Go



Both lighthouses can be seen from shore at a distance and closer from the Ferry which leaves Lewes, DE for Cape May NJ on a regular basis. A good ride with lots to see on any kind of day.


The area shown here is in Cape Henlopen State Park and is a really great place when the tourists are absent. That is from Sept. through June. The beaches as you can see are terrific and a wide angle lens gets it done. Kinda crowded during "The season" but then it is within 2/3 hours from major metropolitan areas. A really great place to visit.

http://www.destateparks.com/park/cape-henlopen/

If the kids aren't at the Cape then, probably down further south at Rehoboth Beach, which offers more for the little kids in the way of amusements, crowds, and restaurants. Or perhaps, almost to Ocean City, MD at Indian River Inlet where my son likes to surf.

Regardless, I miss em and thought I'd share.